How to format your references using the Medical Care citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Medical Care. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Houston SD. Anthropology. An example of Preclassic Mayan writing? Science. 2006 Mar 3;311(5765):1249–50.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ransohoff RM, Stevens B. Neuroscience. How many cell types does it take to wire a brain? Science. 2011 Sep 9;333(6048):1391–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

Dieterich J, Cayol V, Okubo P. The use of earthquake rate changes as a stress meter at Kilauea volcano. Nature. 2000 Nov 23;408(6811):457–60.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Brose U, Ostling A, Harrison K, Martinez ND. Unified spatial scaling of species and their trophic interactions. Nature. 2004 Mar 11;428(6979):167–71.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Cox I, Gaudard MA, Stephens ML. Visual Six Sigma, Second Edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.

An edited book

Kaul SC, Wadhwa R, editors. Mortalin Biology: Life, Stress and Death. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2012. XIV, 342 p.

A chapter in an edited book

Kaidanovskii NL. Radio Astronomy at the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In: Braude SY, Salomonovich AE, Samanian VA, Shklovskii IS, Sorochenko RL, Troitskii VS, et al., editors. A Brief History of Radio Astronomy in the USSR: A Collection of Scientific Essays. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2012. p. 137–55. (Astrophysics and Space Science Library).

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Medical Care.

Blog post

Luntz S. Martian Resonance Found In 87-Million-Year-Old Rocks Confirms A Chaotic Solar System [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/martian-resonance-found-in-87millionyearold-rocks-confirms-a-chaotic-solar-system/

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office. Information Technology Management: Coast Guard Practices Can Be Improved. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2000 Dec. Report No.: GAO-01-190.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Mosbacker HL. Control of Electrical Transport Mechanisms at Metal-Zinc Oxide Interfaces by Subsurface Defect Engineering with Remote Plasma Treatment [Doctoral dissertation]. [Columbus, OH]: Ohio State University; 2008.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Vecsey G. Eight Teams That Will Try Their Best. How Novel. New York Times. 2010 Jan 9;D3.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference ¹.
This sentence cites two references ^1,2.
This sentence cites four references ^1–4.

About the journal

Full journal title	Medical Care
Abbreviation	Med. Care
ISSN (print)	0025-7079
ISSN (online)	1537-1948
Scope	Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health